Lighting systems enable a particular space, such as an office or a shop or any private or public place, etc., to become a more natural environment by creating lighting conditions familiar and attractive to people. This is especially beneficial in environments that are relatively closed and/or windowless, such as shops, shopping malls, meeting rooms and cubicle offices.
Conventional lighting systems allow control of light sources, such as dimming, switching on/off and color adjustments in order to provide an enriching experience and improve productivity, safety, efficiency and relaxation.
Retail lighting, for example shop lighting, is generally designed and installed for shops selling a variety of goods, such as fashion clothes stores. Typically, spotlights in a fashion store are aimed to create a carefully designed atmosphere to encourage shopping, to emphasize certain goods, and to make the interior look interesting/appealing, etc.
However, in most cases, the lighting design is done once, e.g., upon installation of a lighting system, renovation or the like, and often remains unchanged, at least until a light designer returns after a long period of time. This period may be a year or more, when the designer returns to adjust spotlights to complement new interior changes. The lighting design is intended to express a shop brand identity, which must be strong and easily memorable for shoppers. Additionally, shop personnel are not trained to assess lighting conditions and often do not have time to design the lighting.
However, these issues imply that the shopping experience is not surprising and can even be boring after multiple visits. There is also a trend towards pop up stores, which are stores opened only temporarily for certain periods in different buildings, creating a unique atmosphere in each new building, and this has found to increase customer return rates.
Shoppers want to be inspired, and retailers make a large number of changes to the store appearance to inspire shoppers to come in. Sometimes multiple changes in the positions of items or the layout of displays are made over the course of a day to make sure shoppers see something different each time they pass.
It has been recognized that retail space lighting can play a significant role in attracting customers into a retail outlet. For example, an element of surprise generated by the lighting configuration may also attract the attention of potential customers.
Changing a lighting configuration can be a very costly and labor intensive process. Thus, when shops want to change their atmosphere and lighting more often, this should be made possible in an automatic, pre-defined way, to avoid the high cost and time needed for manual control.
There is therefore a need for a lighting solution which enables dynamic lighting changes which are best able to attract customers to a retail space, but which has the dynamic effect controlled in an automated or semi-automated way.